Most Kazakh Finance Ministry services were provided in electronic format last year

ASTANA – The majority of services of the Kazakh Ministry of Finance were provided in electronic format in 2017, Minister Bakhyt Sultanov told a July 3 government meeting on digitisation.

Photo credit: shapingtheodds.com.

Of 18 million services last year, the ministry provided 16 million, or 88 percent, in electronic format, including through a specially designated web portal, egov.kz.

“By the end of the year, we plan to transfer six state services to electronic format (without the participation of the human factor). We intend to shorten the circulation period of 25 state services,” he said.

As a result, the share of services in electronic form will increase to 95 percent.

The time needed to provide information on the availability of tax debts was reduced from three days to several minutes.

“Thanks to the centralisation of personal accounts, cases of erroneous payment of taxes were shortened three times,” said Sultanov.

One of the ministry’s key tasks is optimising and automating the budget planning process. The work is currently completed on paper, resulting in long data collection periods up to 80 working days.

“Automation will cut expenses (paper, stationery, travel expenses, postal services) to form a budget application of 70 percent, as the terms of approval will be reduced four times (from 80 to 20 days),” he added.

Government purchases are presently conducted in electronic format, allowing businesses to save up to 10 billion tenge (US$29.2 million) annually for postal and travel expenses. The state may save more than 200 billion tenge (US$585.3 million).

The financial sector is one of the key industries for digital technology. Financial services are linked by the possibility of using information technology (IT) tools and digital solutions, according to National Bank Chair Daniyar Akishev.

In recent years, the most significant trend in the financial industry has been providing online services through the Internet and mobile applications. Almost all Kazakh banks have introduced a remote banking system. Mobile banking services are provided by 60 percent of banks, which serve almost 90 percent of the entire banking client base. Approximately 10 million users are registered in the systems, 30 percent of whom regularly conduct operations.

“Every day, 400,000 transactions worth 6 billion tenge (US$17.5 million) are carried out through digital banking. Seventy percent of financial transactions of business entities are also conducted through remote services,” he said.